Chris Amirault

As DeGroff was unable to fill the cocktail glass with sufficient volume, using a smaller amount of a more saturated syrup, he thus switched over to using a greater amount of a less saturated syrup; This is what I meant by "bulking up"; He essentially adds water to a drink to increase the visible amount in the glass. ← Gotcha. Here's the relevant quote in case someone else skimmed too quickly like me:

I guess I'm missing something. Where does he say that we should bulk up cocktails by adding simple syrup? There's a comment about making sure that the sour palate of the bartender isn't used as a model for the sweeter palate of the customer -- is that what you mean by "bulk up"?

Pray, what is a Tales Apprenticeship? Get to squeeze a few thousand limes?

Gosh, it's good that I didn't say that, then, and instead referred to most of the recipes I'd seen. Did someone else?

In addition to Sam's good points above, I'd add that most of the cocktail recipes I've seen, classic and otherwise, refer either to 1:1 or 2:1 syrups. I've never seen one for 9:1. Who? For what? Where? And ditto the request for the DeGroff reference. The idea that a serious bartender, much less DeGroff, adds simple syrup to "bulk up" a drink sounds bizarre to me.

The definitive work is What to Eat with What You Drink, an outstanding book by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. It covers a wide variety of drinks but is largely focused on wine. I can't imagine an improvement on it, frankly.

Following a tip from the irrepressible Dan Shoemaker at the Teardrop Lounge in Portland, I took a bus Friday night out to Limbo, an organic grocer next to Trader Joe's with a massive "Wall of Herbs." I spent two hours there opening jars and sniffing stuff. There was no quinine or cinchona, sadly, but I did find wild cherry bark, wormwood, and a few other things I had been looking for. I also found stuff that was impossible to describe and just had to buy, like cubeb, pau d'arco, costus root, red sage root.... It was dizzying. Here's the full list of what's in my suitcase. Feel free to tell me what to do (or not) with any of it: agrimony angelica bee pollen bilberry birch bark black haw blessed thistle burdock calamus cascara sagrada chaste tree costus root cubeb grains of paradise guarana hawthorne hops licorice stick lovage myrrh pau d'arco prickly ash red sage root sarsparilla sassafrass wild cherry bark wormwood yohimbe

Writing about the Violet Hour's Riviera, Toby said, A big fan of the Riviera, I had a pineapple steeping for three days and had to strain it off before going on a trip. The sieve full of pineapple presented a curious problem, which I solved forthwith. So I say to you: not only is the Riviera a fine cocktail, but the leftover pineapple is the breakfast of champions, particularly leading up to a cross-country flight.

Looks very interesting. No bitters? Not even a drop on the meringue?

I'm a big fan as well and this is a brilliant idea. Thinking of the mess that is the main street of Deadwood, what about some take on the Mud Slide that includes a tiny bit of your housemade Irish cream and a tiny bit of espresso syrup, plus a boatload of bitters?

I had a crappy, long day, and I came home determined to find something funky and fresh. Since Marky Mark doesn't live here, I decided to make a drink instead. I think it's damned good if you like things a bit weird. I hope you'll appreciate that I chose not to name it the Pass the Dutchie but instead chose... Funky Punsch Sour 1 1/2 oz Swedish punsch (eje's Underhill punsch) 2 oz rhum agricole (Neisson) 1/2 oz maraschino (Luxardo) 1 lime dash Angostura bitters dash orange bitters (Angostura as well) It's clean, crisp, and funky -- a very enjoyable combination this evening, though not for everyone.

I smell a very nice relationship in the offing. If you plan to go back more than once, I'd say graciously accepting some reduced version of the generous offer is a great idea. That way you build on a good customer/manager relationship (forged in the fires of this mess, in fact), show you're a swell guy, and maybe get nice treats for just being your Busboy self in perpetuity.

A vamped up Red Headed Slut served as a Sprite highball could probably be a Desperate Housewife.

Build a case. Give management the ability to see this as you see it, in as objective a form as possible. Document what he says; put quotes in quotation marks. Document what he does -- and say only what you know he did, not what you think or heard he did. Date everything. Send yourself emails of your notes if possible. Then when you have a strong, impartial case, sit down and present it as clearly as you can. Pitch it as something that's in the best interests of the restaurant, not a means to get an asshole out of your hair. Remember that jerks make good food, lots of money, and managers happy; if you make the case that he's screwing up the food and the money, management should get it. If they don't get it? Well, even if this guy goes, there will always be another inept coworker from hell. The question is whether there's any real staff supervision and accountability, and doing all this will let you know how it'll play out the next dozen times it happens.

Perhaps it would work with select films. An "Ice Storm Cocktail," say: white booze (gin, triple sec?) stirred until very, very cold; starts sweet and easy but ends with those four dashes of orange bitters on your tongue.

Triglycerides are a common type of fat; here's what the American Heart Association has to say about them. I don't really understand why they'd be the culprit, since they appear in most other fatty foods as well.

I just made a Blood & Sand Cocktail (Heering, Famous Grouse, Punt e Mes, if you care about such things), and it got me to thinking about the practice of naming cocktails after movies and plays. There's a long list of 'em, and a wide range of quality. I'm interested in when this practice started, how it worked, when it all came to a halt, and why. I'm also wondering if there isn't a good reason to do it again -- and to include TV. I mean, given the attention paid to such things on the show, surely someone needs to create a suave, manly tipple AMC can market as a "Mad Men Cocktail."

I've heard a few chefs who, while grousing that "anyone can braise pork belly," want to return attention to quality preparations of loins, tenderloins, chicken breasts, fish filets -- the sorts of proteins that are, according to one person I heard, unforgiving and thus require more skill.

Sundays they have a live mariachi band, supposedly, but they weren't there the one time we visited.

While in Tucson, I had the great pleasure of eating thrice at El Guero Canelo, one of my favorite places to eat on the globe. I had only been before on one previous trip, but the perfection of the Sonoran hot dogs transformed my understanding of what a hot dog can be. You can read the description here: The menu features many other Mexican dishes as well, including a very good carne asada taco that you'll see more of in a minute. Everything about the place is well-designed, well-prepared, and just damned good. The seating area is outdoors under a roof, and consists of stainless steel tables kept spotless by a cadre of friendly, attentive staff. In the center of the dining area there is a stand filled with salsas and other condiments: I'm partial to the grilled jalapeno salsa in the foreground of this shot: There are also hoppers filled with free grilled jalapenos and spring onions: The hot dog kitchen sits in what looks like a boxy Airstream trailer knock-off: The hot dogs arrive wrapped in a strip of bacon and then sit in the rectangular bin in the photo below, which quickly turns the bacon to crisp meat and bubbling fat: Here's the chef blazing away while the queue grows: Across the way from the hot dog kitchen is the taco kitchen, in which two guys toil in the Arizona heat in another metal box: Here's what my full meal looked like one day, with some Jamaica (hibiscus) drink: A close-up of two carne asada tacos with chopped cabbage: Two of the perfect hot dogs: Each time our family left talking about how every detail, every aspect is remarkably well done. Though I prefer actually eating there, I'm happy just knowing El Guero Canelo exists.

Congrats to Steve Sando's twofer! Member Rancho_Gordo has a segment on this week's Spendid Table on NPR, and his delectable beans are featured in the NY Times Magazine. Click here for the Amazon link to his book, Heirloom Beans.

Grey/green sounds like a problem. Is it fuzzy? Pix?

After ten days of vacation and a few days of catch-up that involved three evenings of work (read: no dinner at home), I finally settled into dinner-making mode tonight. Usually I would have hit Whole Foods and found a whole bunch of things to make, then let half of them sit in the fridge two weeks. Tonight? I made the second batch of the turkey parm above. The only thing I bought from a store was some mesclun mix for a salad on the side. Who'da thunk it.

Here it is, such as it is. It was all a result of a flukey mishap but, using a rudimentary two-stage steep, it turned out pretty well. I never went back to recalibrate for anything more precise.

Dude, I made toast bitters. Anything's possible. I'd go for a standard bitters procedure and aim for lighter, falernum flavors: ginger, white cardamom, white pepper, clove. Worst that happens is that you waste some Everclear.